Chapter C: C. M

As to the pleasures derived from pursuing the science of ornithology in nature's interminable range, there are delights the field ornithologist experiences quite unknown to his stay-at-home namesake. For instance, what a thrill of pride courses through him as he clings to the topmost branches of the tallest pine tree, making himself acquainted with the rude cradle of the sparrow-hawk; or when examining the beautiful and richly marked eggs of the windhover, laid bare and nestless in the magpie's old abode, some sixty feet or more in the branches of a towering oak. When, if ever, do our closet naturalists inspect these lovely objects in their elevated cradle? Again, how elated the field naturalist will feel when, after hours of patient watching, he gets a sight of a troop of timid jays, or the woodpecker, busy in his search for food on some noble tree! How elated when, scaling the cliff's rugged side in search of sea birds' eggs, or tramping over the wild and barren moor, he flushes the snipe or ring ousel from its heathery bed, or startles the curlew from its meal in the fathomless marsh! We might enlarge upon this subject _ad infinitum_, but to a field naturalist these pleasures are well known, and to the closet personage uncared for. Suffice it to say, that he who takes nature for his tutor will experience delights indescribable from every animate and inanimate object of the universe; from the tiny blade of grass to the largest forest tree--the tiniest living atom, seemingly without form or purpose, to its gigantic relation of much higher development. The pages of nature's mighty book are unrolled to the view of every man who cares to haunt her sanctuaries. The doctrine it teaches is universal, pregnant with truth, endless in extent, eternal in duration, and full of the widest variety: Upon the earth it is illustrated by endless forms beautiful and grand, and in the trackless ether above, the stars and suns and moons gild its immortal pages.--_Rural Bird-Life in England._

The aspects of nature change ceaselessly, by day and by night, through the seasons of the year, with every difference in latitude and longitude; and endless are the profusion and variety of the results which illustrate the operation of her laws. But, let the productions of different climes and countries be never so unlike, she works by the same methods; the spirit of her teachings never changes; nature herself is always the same, and the same wholesome, satisfying lessons are to be learned in the contemplation of any of her works. We may change our skies, but not our minds, in crossing the sea to gain a glimpse of that bird-life which finds its exact counterpart in our own woods and fields, at the very threshold of our own homes.--_Coues._

The boy was right, in a certain sense, when he said that he knew nature when she passed. Alone, he had hunted much in the woods day and night. He knew the tall trees that were the coons' castles, and the high hills of the 'possum's rambles. He had a quick eye for the smooth holes where the squirrels hid or the leafy hammocks where they dozed the heated hours away. The tangles where the bob-whites would stand and sun themselves stood out to him at a glance, and when the ruffed grouse drummed he knew his perch and the screens to dodge behind as he crept up on him.--_Baskett._

THE QUAILS' QUADRILLE.

BY MRS. A. S. HARDY.

One who loves the birds and is so much in sympathy with them as to make it appear sometimes that they have taken her into their "order," had a charming glimpse, a few years ago, of a covey of quails in one of their frolics. She described it as follows:

"I never hear the call of 'Ah, Bob White!' or catch a glimpse of those shy little vocalists, that I do not think of how I once surprised them in the prettiest dance I ever saw. I had heard of the games and the frolics of birds and have often watched them with delight, but I never saw any bird-play that interested me as this, that seemed like a quadrille of a little company of quails.

"They were holding their pretty carnival at the side of a country road along which I was slowly strolling, and I came in sight of them so quietly as to be for a time unobserved, although they had two little sentinels posted--one at each end of the company.

"Between these bright-eyed little watchers, always on the alert, a dozen or more birds were tip-toeing in a square. Every motion was with all the grace and harmony which are nature's own. At some little bird-signal which I didn't see, two birds advanced from diagonal corners of the square, each bird tripping along with short, airy and graceful steps, something like what we imagine characterized the old-time 'minuet.' Each bird, as the partners came near each other, bobbed its head in a graceful little bow, and both tripped back as they came to their places in the square. Immediately the birds from the two other corners advanced with the same airy grace, the same short, quick, and tripping steps, saluting and retreating as the others had done.

"A wagon driven along the road disturbed the band of dancers, who scudded away under leaves, through the fence, into the deep grass of the field beyond. When the team had passed out of sight and the ball-room was again their own, back came the pretty revelers stealthily, their brown heads uplifted as their bright eyes scanned the landscape. Seeing no intruder, they again took their places the same as before and began again the same quadrille--advancing, meeting, bowing, and retreating.

"It was the prettiest and most graceful little 'society affair' you can imagine! There was no music--no song that I could hear--yet every little bird in every turn and step while the dance was on, moved as to a measured harmony.

"Did the birds keep 'time--time, in a sort of runic rhyme' to melody in their hearts, or to a symphony, I could not hear, but which goes up unceasingly like a hymn of praise from nature's great orchestra? I longed to know.

"In my delight and desire to learn more of the bewitching bird-play, I half forgot I was a clumsy woman, and an unconscious movement betrayed my presence. The little sentinel nearest me quickly lifted his brown head, and spying me gave his signal--how, I could not guess, for not a sound was uttered; but all the dancers stretched their little necks an instant and sped away. In a moment the ground was cleared and the dancers came not back."

THE GRAPE.